We started the day with a visit to the railway station to book seats for tomorrow's trip to Morioka, the first part of our journey back to Tokyo. It turned out that all reserved seats for the first leg of the journey were all booked, so we'll have to make sure we get to the station early to get to the head of the queue for non-reserved seats.
We then went by subway to the Sake Museum which turned out to be a bit of a let-down. It was really a bottle shop with a few items on display and a video showing. Despite being something that would obviously be of interest to visitors, it was very foreign-visitor-unfriendly. The brochure, signs and staff were all Japanese with no English, so we didn't understand anything we saw. We don't expect a non-English-speaking country to pander to our lack of language skills, but a bit of assistance at tourist locations would be surely be helpful on both sides. Some of the places we visited earlier in the trip had brochures in several languages, but we've found a general lack in Hokkaido.
We thought about going to the Beer Museum, but decided that if we want to see beer made, we can see this at home. We walked to the Sapporo Factory, which was previously a beer factory and has now been converted into a huge shopping centre. Some of the old buildings still remain, but the converted part is just amazing. It includes a beautiful atrium with a garden, water feature and cafes. We browsed around the shops (probably more to remain warm than any other reason) and I bought myself a Japanese children's book which is above my current reading level so I've got something to aspire to, and we then had lunch at one of the cafes in the atrium. We just happened to walk in as one of the staff brought a tray of savoury pastries straight from the oven. It didn't take long for the first two sales! There were lots of young mums with their toddlers running this way and that and we enjoyed sitting back watching them dashing around. Japanese toddlers are SO cute! (John probably thought the same about their Mums too!)
Our next stop was the Sapporo TV Tower which looks like a little stubby version of the Eiffel Tower. We went up in the elevator to the Observation Deck. I found the journey up quite scarey as the elevator has glass walls, but once we got up to the deck, it was worth the fright on the way up. The view went forever and included a view straight down Odori Park, the big boulevard where the Snow Festival is held.Speaking of Festivals, one thing we missed during our visit to Hokkaido was the Swan Festival which is held near Wakkanai. Apparently it features raffles, bingo and a speed-eating competition. Sounds like a real blast!!
After our successful descent from the TV Tower, we went back to the hotel to recover from all the walking we had done. A few cups of tea later, we ventured out again, firstly to visit the
railway station again to book seats for the following day (having learnt from this morning's visit that we need to get in early) and then we went for dinner in a large shopping mall nearby. The mall is divided into 'streets' with names like 'Joyful Walk', 'Fashion Walk' and 'Food Walk'. A nice young lady working in a shop in Fashion Walk kindly posed for a photo. She looked so cute in her boater hat which are all the rage here at the moment. But Food Walk was the one for us! We found another excellent restaurant and had a great meal for a great price. I had fried rice this time and found it very tricky to eat with chopsticks as the rice doesn't stick together as the boiled or steamed Japanese rice does. Not being one to eat slowly, I had to eventually resort to my soup spoon. On the way back to the hotel, we came across a shop selling items from different countries including Betty Crocker cake mixes, German deli items, corn flakes, Spanish olives, Campbell's soup and ... Vegemite!!
We relaxed for the rest of the evening. As I write, John is flicking through TV channels. He doesn't understand what anyone is saying, but there doesn't seem to be anything that he'd usually choose to watch anyway. Tomorrow we take on the crowd battling for non-reserved seats on the train. I hope we win!
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